“Eat, pray, love”… You can read it, watch it or put it in the oven

A book, a film but first and foremost the most typical of all Italian dishes: the Pizza Margherita. We’ll tell you how to describe it and especially… how to enjoy it. Prepare those taste buds!

Have you ever thought about how many adjectives can be used to describe a pizza? Elizabeth Gilbert did, in her book “Eat, pray, love”, which was the base for the film of the same name with Julia Roberts, directed by Ryan Murphy.

“I’d always thought that, in terms of pizza bases, life offers only two possibilities: thin and crunchy, or else thick and soft. Who’d have ever said that thin and soft pizzas also exist? Thin, soft, consistent, elastic, exquisite, slippery, delicious pizza.”

At the time, the protagonist is in Naples, during an international journey to search for herself. During her stay, she convinces her new friend Sofi that one has to savour life to the full and to indulge in pleasure… The pleasure of one particular day lies in discovering Pizza Margherita, in such a delicious version that she orders a second, with a double ration of mozzarella…

“I love my pizza so much that in my delirium I become convinced that it loves me too. As though a close personal relationship was growing between me and my pizza, practically a love story.”

The Pizza Margherita conquers Liz – the protagonist of the film “Eat, pray, love” – from the first bite, and sweeps her away in a detailed hymn of praise for every ingredient:

“On top lies a sweet tomato sauce that froths and bubbles creamily when it meets the fresh buffalo mozzarella and, at the center of this harmony, fresh basil leaves spread their sunny, grassy aroma throughout the pizza, the way a shining film star at the center of a party transmits her luminous sheen to all those around her.”

Tomato sauce, fresh buffalo mozzarella and basil: these are undeniably the irreplaceable ingredients of a good pizza margherita. But the true core of this pizza is above all the pastry mix of its base, prepared with a strict list of ingredients containing nothing other than flour, water, salt and beer yeast.

The making of the pizza’s pastry base, which calls for manual skill and experience, can be done in countless and often very different ways. We respect the traditional Neapolitan method, which obeys strict rules on this subject:

the pizza paste must be elastic and soft, so that it can easily be bent in half

the pastry circle must have a diameter of no more than 35 centimetres

the paste must be rigorously shaped by hand, without ever touching the edges, which should be no more than 1 or 2 centimetres higher than the middle, and be completely devoid of bubbles

the centre, which will receive the other ingredients, should be about 4 millimetres high

the cooking should be done in a wood-fired oven at roughly 485°C, for no more than 90 seconds.

What about that? Sounds like an applied science manual, no? Even if the recipe is extremely popular and apparently easy to carry out, pizza-making is actually an art that can’t be improvised, especially with respect to the pastry-making technique.

So, if you want to experience the same ecstatic sensations as Julia Roberts in the film, we suggest you visit the pizzeria where the scene was shot. The pizzeria “Da Michele” is a famous long-running pizzeria in Naples in a street that joins Corso Umberto I (aka the Rettifilo) in the Forcella district.

It consists of two small rooms and an oven which is never turned off. There is not much choice, just two kinds of pizzas: normal or with double mozzarella. But then again, purists will tell you that there are only two kinds of genuine traditional Neapolitan pizzas: the Margherita and the Marinara.All the other kinds are just food.